Sons & Daughters upgraded to three stars, plus the Wurst and grilled cheese: In Today’s Newspaper

Welcome to the 3-star club, Teague Moriarty and Matt McNamara. Photo: The Chronicle

The Feature (embargoed): Restaurants are hawking a new generation of grilled cheese sandwiches.

The Update: Michael Bauer revisits Sons & Daughters. When he first reviewed it upon opening last year, he called it an enthusiastic “learning lab” and gave it 2.5 stars overall (3 for food). A year later, it’s all grown up. There are just 29 seats, prices have increased, but my, is the food from chef-owners Matt McNamara and Teague Moriarty matured, creative, and delicious:

Their knife skills have become more refined, their combinations more integrated … While there’s lots of activity on each plate, the flavors come together almost seamlessly. And in the past few months the service has come together, too … The restaurant has grown up considerably in a year’s time. Sons & Daughters is becoming more like Fathers & Mothers.

Customers line up at the counter to order specialties like Sheboygan brats ($7.25) or a South Side Detroit Polish sausage fashioned of pork, beef, beer, onion and spices, rounded out with plump, fluffy-battered onion rings and beer mustard ($8.75) … The Wurst recipe is one of the best ($6.75). The snappy skin yields to dense, moist pork brightened with hints of sage, fennel, fresh parsley and smoked paprika. I also found myself reordering the Harissa Hottie ($6.75) over several visits, drawn by its barely sweet notes of apricot amid the pork and beef, sparked with periodic lightning bolts of harissa and habanero.

Final rating: 2 stars

Bar Bites: If you can’t swing a dinner at the Michelin-starred La Toque in Napa, don’t fret, because you can still sample chef Ken Frank’s fare at the adjacent Bank Bar, which serves things like ahi lollipops with shiso-avocado mousse and ponzu ($15) and soy-glazed pork belly and gingered Brussels sprout slaw ($12).

Bargain Bite: Livermore’s Tin Thai Kitchen is an ode to Thai street food, served up via a big, newspaper-style menu.